In addition to that exciting event, I witnessed a few other discussions on policy. Some were so bad (in terms of useful policies) that I was forced -- FORCED, I tell you! -- to tweet my objections in real time. Here are some highlights (oldest at bottom) by topic:

Regulations and prices
24 May: WIN: Cyprus water minister "poor people pay the same for water as anyone else. We give them income subsidies"

24 May: FAIL. EU water guy talking about water policy in future (supply and demand) without mentioning prices and markets.

23 May: Scatasta (EIB) nails it: "need prices for cost recovery AND prices for water as a resource"

22 May: EU needs to get religion on incentives to use/waste water. It's not all about "do the right thing" or regulation.

22 May: Can DK tell EU what to do when their water costs 10x the price of water in Italy? They have money; Italians are broke!

22 May: I wonder if all the EU-crats here are going to talk about tradeoffs as regulations increase cost of business? No free lunch!Agriculture
24 May: FAIL: FR Ag lobbyist telling stories about himself, pretending all farmers are like him. Also playing food security card :(

24 May: FAIL: Cyprus Water minister: "no room for water trading in water poor area, but ok in water rich areas like Australia [sic]."

22 May: OMG! Ag lobbyist: "farmers only make 60% of average income in EU-27" so we need more subsidies.

22 May: EU farmers and US farmers say pay us if we do OR don't. What ever happened to "pay us for delivering food to market"?

22 May: If you want to target the environment, take (buy) water from farmers (and regulate pollution), don't subsidize them

22 May: Ag lobbyist (Copa-Cogeca) says farmers "need" water for business and "deliver" environmental outcomes. More subsidies, please. Footprints
I have no idea why this topic was given disproportionate prominence by the "communications" team -- over the objections of the policy team -- but some attendees appeared to think that footprinting was going to become official EU policy. If that happens, then we are going to see many happy (but useless) consultants and the possibility of mismanagement on the scale of corn ethanol/biofuels.

22 May: Definitely an advertisement for WFN consulting. This NOT a high-level policy talk!

22 May: "Footprint is measure of humanity's pressure on water resources"? Not! Look at supply and demand

22 May: She claims it's global and needs to be measured. Hope this is not an advertisement for WFN consulting!

22 May: Ruth Mathews from Water footprinting network. This better be good.

Bottom Line: It's sad to see people pushing their interests (farmers wanting more subsidies) or preferred solutions (footprints for all!) over ideas and policies that maximize the social benefits from our water.* Scientific American (via RM) published this graphic and text:

A vast amount of water is used to produce the food and products... Certain countries, such as India and the U.S., also export significant quantities of water in the form of food and products, despite their own robust consumption. Populous nations that have little land or little water are huge net importers... Those insights come from engineers Arjen Y. Hoekstra and Mesfin M. Mekonnen of the University of Twente in the Neth­erlands. Over the long term, net exporters may want to alter trade policies to avoid creating their own water shortages or raise prices to reflect the cost of increasingly scarce water resources. Inefficient water nations might improve agricultural practices. And net importers might lower exports to save water for domestic use.

Besides that one dose of reality (local management -- via bureaucracy or prices/markets -- that balances supply and demand), there is too much engineered "lowering" of exports or alterations of trade policies. Those policies rarely work in practice (politics) even if they could be based on sound measurement -- which they are not. For more on footprinting and virtual water, I recommend this essay by an Indian water expert over at the Global Water Forum.